City Councilman Brian O’Neill has easily won re-election every four years since narrowly unseating Democrat Melvin Greenberg in 1979, but he faces an aggressive opponent in a district that is just one-third Republican.

As City Hall’s financial watchdog, Controller Alan Butkovitz has his hands full while keeping tabs on a broke city that needs money, a broke school district that needs money and a planned change in real-estate assessment likely to have a lot of residents howling.